Ok, I'll spare you the trouble: It's a sort of ancestor to
Timna of Yemen, featured in the Bible, and
Mnar, an ancient land spoken of by the noted historian H.P. Lovecraft. :2thumbsup: More to come soon.
No straight references to Pictish Mastodons that I'm aware of (I'm going through non-Hyborian tales like "Men of the Shadows" just to make sure), but given the giant pythons, sabretooths & other ancient horrors I figure it's the best place Conan could have seen a mastodon before "Red Nails". The Dark Storm Chronology, the timeline I'm using, as Conan being in the Pictish Wilderness ("Beyond the Black River" & "The Black Stranger") directly prior to "Red Nails", which is a decent enough explanation as to why he compared the dragon to a Mastodon as opposed to an elephant, since they might've been fresh in his mind.
Iranistan is basically the most important, powerful and influential of the independent sub-factions, even in its current contracted state: if I decide to make the "Eastern Kingdoms" faction it is a part of playable, the capital would be there. Probably the best model to imagine is the Sassanid Empire with a little of the Achaemenids & Parthians thrown in : basically, the ultimate zenith of Persian culture.
All clues in the saga show that Iranistan had
massive cultural influence in its neighbours: almost all nearby lands have some aspect of Iranistan culture. Howard seemed to imply a lot of back-and-forthing between Shemite and Iranistan rule in Eastern Shem and the Eastern Desert. Turan has adopted much Iranistani language into its military (Shahs etc), and the kings of both
Turan and
Stygia - the mightiest empires of the South and East - have Iranistani names, arguing possible intermixing or at least some cultural assimilation. Even the Hyborians worship Mitra, a god with an Iranistani name. And of course, the mightiest magical talisman of the Hyborian Age - the Heart of Ahriman - has an Iranistani name, implying an Iranistani origin. I would bet much of the "modern" Hyborian religion started in Iranistan.
So yeah, Iranistan's pretty important. :sweatdrop:
Cheers, I hope to get the preview up tomorrow/tonight. It'll probably be a tad text-heavy, though: mostly flavour images (though maybe one or two "surprises")